WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2017
LOCAL NEWS
HSD selects Desert View principal
Hermiston Herald
The Hermiston School
District has selected a new
principal for Desert View
Elementary School. Lauren
Jacobsma will be recom-
mended to fill the position
at the school board meeting
on Monday, June 12.
Jacobsma is an instruc-
tional coach at Oakridge Ele-
mentary southeast of Eugene,
and taught third through sixth
grade at that school from
2006 to 2015. As an instruc-
tional coach, she has worked
with teachers to help them use
data to make decisions about
students, and helped imple-
ment Smarter Balanced test-
ing at the school.
“I am very excited about
the next step in my career,”
Jacobsma said in a state-
ment. “I am appreciative of
my time in Oakridge, but I
am looking forward to join-
ing the Hermiston School
District and Desert View
community.”
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A3
Hermiston budget outlines
new developments in town
Senior center,
trail, water meters
in the works
By JADE MCDOWELL
Staff Writer
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY EMMA HUBBARD
A group of Echo Middle School students work on props for “The Little Mermaid,” which will
be performed May 31 in the gym at the Echo School District.
Echo students make a splash with ‘Little Mermaid’
Hermiston Herald
Students from Echo Mid-
dle School have been swim-
ming into the spring season as
they prepare for a production
of “The Little Mermaid.”
The familiar Disney mu-
sical will be staged Wednes-
day, May 31 at 6 p.m. in the
school’s gymnasium, 600
Gerone St., Echo. There is
no admission charge.
All students in sixth
through eighth grade have
a role in the production
— from the stage crews
to performing as the main
cast. The publicity crew of
Elliot Glenn, Caiden Harris
and Ashley Mack provided
information and photos for
a press release about the
show. The public is encour-
aged to help ensure the play
is a splash by attending the
performance.
For more information,
contact Emma Hubbard at
emma.hubbard@echo.k12.
or.us or 541-376-8436. To
view a behind the scenes
trailer of the production,
visit www.youtube.com.
Food truck rules lifted for First Thursday
The Hermiston City
Council gave the Hermis-
ton Downtown Association
the green light on Monday
to try bringing food trucks
to July’s First Thursday
event.
The city passed an or-
dinance in 2013 regulating
mobile food vendors, in-
cluding requirements that
they apply for a license with
the city and only park in
approved areas. But coun-
cilors said bringing food
trucks downtown for First
Thursday would fall under
the exemptions for “spe-
cial events” and they were
willing to give permission
for the trucks to sell from a
public street for four hours
that day.
“I love the idea,” May-
or David Drotzmann said.
“Anything we can do to
stimulate interests in the
First Thursday events.”
First Thursdays are
a coordinated effort by
downtown merchants to
offer special deals, en-
tertainment, contests and
other perks to draw peo-
ple downtown on the first
Thursday evening of each
month. Main Street coordi-
nator Emma Porricolo said
the events have been suc-
cessful in drawing people
downtown, but the num-
bers have “plateaued” and
the downtown association
is looking to add new fea-
tures to bring more people
in.
Porricolo said the asso-
ciation decided to ask per-
mission from the city be-
fore formally lining up food
trucks, but some members
had been talking informally
with local food sellers who
were interested.
L i t t le
D a r l i n gs !
This special section will be fi lled with photos of and
messages for adorable little darlings from Umatilla County.
Families will want to keep this special keepsake for
their child and family for years to come.
PUBLISHES:
June 28, 2017
DEADLINES:
June 08, 2017
Olivia,
t.
I loved you from the very star
heart.
my
ed
rac
emb
,
You stole my breath
un.
beg
just
has
er
Our life togeth
.
You’re part of me, my little one
Love, Mom
Send in, or drop by, a
full color high resolution
photo, your child’s name
and a message to
your child today!
Little Darlings
211 SE Byers, Pendleton, OR 97801
333 E. Main, Hermiston, OR 97838
or email
classifi eds@eastoregonian.com
Your Name:
Phone Number:
Child’s Name:
Message:
www.eastoregonian.com
www.hermistonherald.com
If a city budget is a road
map to projects planned
for the upcoming year,
Hermiston’s
proposed
2017-2018 budget leads to
a new senior center, utility
upgrades and parks proj-
ects.
Construction is already
underway for the Harken-
rider Center, located on
Northeast Second Street,
but most of the work for
the new senior center will
take place in the next fis-
cal year. The center is ex-
pected to open in spring of
2018. The city has added
$750,000 to a $2 million
federal block grant to
build the center.
The parks and recre-
ation department will also
have another busy year,
according to the $57.3 mil-
lion budget approved by
Hermiston’s budget com-
mittee Thursday and set to
go before the Hermiston
City Council in June.
The department will be
moving into the Hermiston
Conference Center in Janu-
ary and taking over opera-
tion of that building, con-
tributing to an increase in
the recreation budget from
$565,808 to $679,995.
The West Highland
Trail project should also
begin construction in ear-
ly 2018, creating a bicycle
and pedestrian path parallel
to the south side of West
Highland Avenue between
Southwest 11th Street and
Riverfront Park. As part
of that project, the city is
working to acquire Steel-
head Park across West
Highland Extension from
Riverfront Park, so that
the trail can loop under
the bridge there instead
of tempting pedestrians to
cross Highland to get to
STAFF PHOTO BY JADE MCDOWELL
Work on the Harkenrider Center has begun.
Riverfront Park.
Whatever funds will be
needed to acquire the prop-
erty from the state would
come out of the city’s
$100,000 community en-
hancement reserve fund
used for matching funds on
grants for livability proj-
ects.
“We don’t feel like the
trail would be at all safe
to get to Riverfront Park
without it, so we wanted
to make sure we had that
money there,” City Man-
ager Byron Smith told the
budget committee.
If a “recreational immu-
nity” bill passes the Ore-
gon House of Representa-
tives before the end of the
current legislative session,
protecting city employees
from liability for injuries
in parks, the city will also
resume designing a skate
park across from the police
station on First Place.
Other objectives for
2017-2018 listed in the
parks budget include en-
hancing the trails around
the Hermiston Butte and
redeveloping Greenwood
Park, a small neighborhood
park off of Beech Street.
Two of the largest
projects in the 2017-2018
budget fall under the util-
ity fund. The city is buy-
ing $1.2 million in new
water meters that can be
read remotely and allow
all Hermiston water cus-
tomers to track their usage
patterns in detail online.
The city is also install-
ing new $1.5 million sol-
ids-handling equipment at
the recycled water treat-
ment plant that will save
$700,000 per year on op-
erational costs.
“Those two items rose
to the top as far as projects
needing to be addressed and
will help us with longterm
costs,” Smith said.
Other items:
• The city will save
about $85,000 per year
by switching to an outside
contractor for utility bill
mailings
• Renovation to the
basement of the old Car-
negie Library will cost
$125,000
• A full-time building
maintenance employee will
be added to handle Harken-
rider and conference center
• All city staff will re-
ceive a 2.5 cost of living
increase, and the total full-
time equivalent workforce
will rise from about 111 to
116 through added hours to
some positions
• The city will spend $1
million of its $1.6 million
urban renewal district bud-
get turning Northeast Sec-
ond Street into a festival
street.
• The city’s full pro-
posed budget can be found
online at hermiston.or.us/
finance/budget.